Towards a Philosophy of Photography

Key Quotes:

"It is a mistake to decipher images as if they were "frozen events." On the contrary they are translations of events into; situations; they substitute scenes for events."- 2

"The function of technical images is to emancipate their receivers from the need to think conceptually". - 6

"Technical images thus suck all of his-tory into their surfaces, and they come to constitute and eternally rotating memory of society." - 7

Research: 

"For Flusser, photography is not only a reproductive imaging technology, it is a dominant cultural technique through which reality is constituted and understood". - Taken from wikipedia which is quoting Becker, Claudia, "Image/Thinking", POP, 2 (2), p. 251

"The photographer’s gesture as the search for a viewpoint onto a scene takes place within the possibilities offered by the apparatus. The photographer moves within specific categories of space and time regarding the scene: proximity and distance, bird- and worm’s-eye views, frontal- and side-views, short or long exposures, etc. The Gestalt of space–time surrounding the scene is prefigured for the photographer by the categories of his camera. These categories are an a priori for him. He must ‘decide’ within them: he must press the trigger." - Flusser (Taken from Wikipedia)

My thoughts/Notes:
Oral History (Magical)> 
Linear Texts (non- Magical)> 
Traditional Images (Magical) > 
Technical Images (Non-Magical) 

    Yields the desire to create Magical Texts


This abundance of photos/videos leads to a "mass civilization" that has a core bank of similar reference points. For example I can meet anyone my age and we know exactly what was happening to us and remember the video footage from 9/11. But all of us might not have read the same texts.


I think that the magical oral history still exists as a part of family history. You can hear stories about ancestors where a photograph for that event didn't exist; will this still happen in the future? 

Work I'm loving this Summer

thomas mailaender

Francesca Woodman Notebook

Seasonal Color Wheel

Christine Elfman 

German Silk quilt from 1774

Various early 1900s quilts